The Effects of Unsubstantiated Claims of Voter Fraud on Confidence in Elections
dc.contributor.author | Berlinski, N | |
dc.contributor.author | Doyle, M | |
dc.contributor.author | Guess, AM | |
dc.contributor.author | Levy, G | |
dc.contributor.author | Lyons, B | |
dc.contributor.author | Montgomery, JM | |
dc.contributor.author | Nyhan, B | |
dc.contributor.author | Reifler, J | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2021-07-06T07:31:43Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2021-06-28 | |
dc.description.abstract | Political elites sometimes seek to delegitimize election results using unsubstantiated claims of fraud. Most recently, Donald Trump sought to overturn his loss in the 2020 US presidential election by falsely alleging widespread fraud. Our study provides new evidence demonstrating the corrosive effect of fraud claims like these on trust in the election system. Using a nationwide survey experiment conducted after the 2018 midterm elections – a time when many prominent Republicans also made unsubstantiated fraud claims – we show that exposure to claims of voter fraud reduces confidence in electoral integrity, though not support for democracy itself. The effects are concentrated among Republicans and Trump approvers. Worryingly, corrective messages from mainstream sources do not measurably reduce the damage these accusations inflict. These results suggest that unsubstantiated voter-fraud claims undermine confidence in elections, particularly when the claims are politically congenial, and that their effects cannot easily be mitigated by fact-checking. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Published online 28 June 2021 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1017/xps.2021.18 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/126301 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/530JGJ | en_GB |
dc.rights | © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | en_GB |
dc.subject | misinformation | en_GB |
dc.subject | voter fraud | en_GB |
dc.subject | social media | en_GB |
dc.title | The Effects of Unsubstantiated Claims of Voter Fraud on Confidence in Elections | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2021-07-06T07:31:43Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 2052-2630 | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available on open access from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this record | en_GB |
dc.description | Data availability: The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available at the Journal of Experimental Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: doi: 10.7910/DVN/530JGJ | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | Journal of Experimental Political Science | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en_GB |
exeter.funder | ::European Commission | en_GB |
rioxxterms.funder | European Union Horizon 2020 | en_GB |
rioxxterms.identifier.project | 682758 | en_GB |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2021-06-28 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2021-07-06T07:23:21Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | VoR | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2021-07-06T07:33:50Z | |
refterms.panel | C | en_GB |
rioxxterms.funder.project | 22ae5fa0-e4a3-4d4c-93d0-63bc4ba64f3b | en_GB |
Files in this item
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.